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Page 406
to his assistance when he was locked in combat with two opponents."
"You may believe what you choose, but the truth is that I did not find FitzWalter earlier. As for Lord Ian, I account him well able to take care of himself, especially against such louts as those."
"What is your quarrel with FitzWalter? Does he know of it?"
"He? The whole world knows of it. He gave away Normandy, and with Normandy my patrimony. I am a second son, Lord Salisbury. My heritage, such as it was, lay not far from the walls of Vaudreuil. I decided to take back a small piece of what FitzWalter or Saer de Quincy owed me in horse and armor ransom." He shrugged. "Perhaps it was not absolutely fitting that three of us went at each of them, but they owed us all and it seemed the best way. We shared in their defeat, and we will share in their ransom."
Salisbury hesitated. It was a sounder and more logical answer than he had expected and might well be true. He asked for and received the names and lodgings of the other knights involved. Four more he found without difficulty. They were all of a typewholesome and seemingly honest young men, none of whom, except Sir Robert, even knew Lord Ian. They had come casually to the tourney to pick up what money they could in the way of knights-errant and had been drawn together by their common grievance of loss of lands in Normandy. That was the story he had from allbut the sixth knight he never found. That one had not returned to his lodgings after the tourney, and no one knew any more than his nameSir Guy.
If there was any mystery, Salisbury learned, it was connected with the missing Sir Guy. It was he who had drawn the other five young men together, yet he never said for certain that he had lost lands. Over the next few days, Salisbury made diligent search for the source of the rumor that someone had bought men to kill Lord

 
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